Geoengineering Climate - Geoingeniería del Clima. Note: "academic arguments against research into GE have been erroneously premised on the possibility of future deployment when in truth this deployment already happened, even if unintended." OE 4/2013
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“He (Mike McCracken) also suggests that the warming that
will follow the clean-up of urban air pollution in populated regions of China
and India be offset by injecting sulphate aerosols over an appropriately sized
area of ocean in the tropics. So instead of the sulphate aerosol ‘umbrella’
hanging low over cities it would ﬂoat high above the oceans, with the sulphur
injected perhaps from mountain tops or from elevated hoses anchored on Pacific
Islands.“We ﬁnd ourselves in an exquisite dilemma. Sulphate pollution
from burning coal and oil has a cooling effect on the planet yet the thick
brown haze covering much of Asia and other conurbations is estimated by the
World Health Organization to kill 1.3 million people each year. The sulphates
in this lower-atmosphere pollution have been so effective at offsetting global
warming that without it, on top of the measured O.8°C warming since
pre-industrial times, the Earth would be an extra 1.1°C warmer.“ As the governments
of China, India and other industrializing countries follow the example of
Western nations and introduce air pollution laws to improve public health, the
latent warming will become manifest.

The lifetime of sulphate aerosols in the lower atmosphere is
one or two weeks while the molecule it is meant to counter, carbon dioxide,
stays up there for many centuries. So if
we were to stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and eliminate carbon dioxide
emissions, the planet would immediately become warmer, and remain so for some
decades. It would be the equivalent of the concentration of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere leaping from 390 ppm to 490 ppm within a few weeks.

It is a frightening fact.
If world leaders were persuade to agree to a programme of rapid reductions
in carbon emissions, we might need somehow to maintain levels of sulphur
pollution in order to avoid a warming so rapid that many ecosystems could not
survive. The only answer seems to be to
maintain this level of pollution for many decades until enough carbon dioxide
can be shifted out of the atmosphere by natural or artificial means.”

My comments OE.

1- I strongly disagree (I do not agree) with Clive Hamilton’s view that the
only answer may be business as usual (BAU) or as he puts it… “The only answer seems to be to maintain
this level of pollution for many decades until enough carbon dioxide can be
shifted out of the atmosphere by natural or artificial means”.

The reason I disagree with Clive Hamilton’s statement in bullet number
1 is that he does not take into consideration the levels of ‘climate cooling’
that may be achieved with concurrent reductions of other ‘short lived climate
forcers’ of opposite sign such as black carbon, methane, etc. And the reduction
in the occurrence of cirrus clouds, this reduction resulting from lower levels of atmospheric
aerosols and the use of lower sulphur jet fuel and contrail avoidance flight
paths, etc.

2- I do think
that his statement that “Sulphate pollution from burning coal and
oil has a cooling effect on the planet yet the thick brown haze covering much
of Asia and other conurbations is estimated by the World Health Organization to
kill 1.3 million people each year” is a solid and verifiable fact, if anything perhaps the number of deaths is under estimated.

3-The following statement is factual, but it is
confusing… “The sulphates in this lower-atmosphere pollution have been so effective
at offsetting global warming that without it, on top of the measured O.8°C
warming since pre-industrial times, the Earth would be an extra 1.1°C warmer.“

It sounds as if he is saying that without
the sulphate pollution the earth would be “an
extra 1.1°C warmer“ when he means to
say that, without sulphate pollution the
earth would be 0.3 °C warmer, totaling 1.1 °C (since the industrial revolution
). See his reference #60. (And my reference for clarity [1])

Never the less I think that is a most important fact that he
brings up and I hope it is discussed more within the geoengineering
debate. Especially in light of reports
of accelerated ocean acidification, [20] and taking into consideration the role
that international shipping may be playing in this acceleration with its 12
Tg/yr of acidifying sulfur and CO2 emissions.
The accelerated and record Arctic ice loss, [21] taking in consideration
the role of black carbon and other radiation trapping factors. [9] The multiple
global reports on persistent and record breaking droughts; [22] [23] [24] and
other environmental such as biodiversity, ocean acidification and health factors. All
of which, in my view, speak to a failure of BAU as an answer to the warming
induced by CO2.

And while some advocates for the implementation of SRM geoengineering
may see this failure as a reason to ‘ramp up’ sulfur emissions via SRM, I see
it differently. I think thatthe understanding of SRM geoengineering or albedo modification should be raised via research as called
by the latest report from the National Academy of Sciences, not to implement a
ramp up but to devise a way to avoid an un-intended lock-in to SRM
geoengineering.

For my part thanks to Clive Hamilton’s book I will now consider
more clearly that…

Climate change denialism and opposition
to research into the effects of current anthropogenic sulphate emissions, are a
forceful and active vote for ongoing un-intended climate geoengineering via BAU with environmental,
social, legal, economical, ethical, political and lock-in repercussions that may
will certainly lead in the future to the need for SRM Geoengineering for millennia.

One last fact for the reader to consider:

At the
moment yearly Sulfur Dioxide emissions from anthropogenic sources into the
atmosphere are an equivalent of more
than 5 Pinatubo eruptions, that is to say over 100 Tg/yr. [2] [3]

Thanks to David Appell
writing for Yale Climate Connections for the correction, it is 100
Terragrams/yr (105 Gg/yr) not 100 Gigagrams/yr.

[1] According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted
by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average
global temperature on Earth has
increased by about 0.8° Celsius (1.4° Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of
the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per
decade.